August 25, 2011

"on how others stand"

To watch somebody else breaking, feels like taking a very cold shower, without getting wet at all. Yesterday morning, an unkown woman got caught by her inner ghosts on the orange studio bench. Almost appearing from nowhere, her screamed out pain hit me at my workdesk. Way before she showed up in front of the studio. She was incredibly pretty, blonde and crying so hard, the man by her side could not do anything else but to move in slow motion. He was the sweetest, placing her on that bench and holding tight, to stop her from falling apart into a million pieces. Still, she did fall. I was holding my breath, only seperated by a windowpane and with fantasies of invisibility running through my helpless mind. There was nothing I could do, but wait. After at least another hour the sobbing went silent, followed by soft words and a few cigarettes. Some minutes later the couple got up and walked away. I stayed with myself and the brushes, wondering. That woman's suffering did not leave me sad alone. It reminded me of all the good things in my life; the gift of inner strength, all the love around me and that at least, we can trust the rain. It will come and leave eventually, just like that. The only thing for me to do, was to go back, painting. In the afternoon, when a neighbor suprised me with my favourite coffee and a giant chocolate cookie, there was sun.

3 comments:

wow..... don't know what to say, that poor woman. It reminds me of a conversations I had with a friend: talking about all the bad things and then we realized: we should count our blessings...and again: beautiful photo's to your words.

Dear Annton, you may think that I haven't been visiting, but I have. And reading, at a loss for words for many, many days. This story reminded you, in the same way as the tradegy here, reminded me of our blessings. I hope I'm making sense.xox Lilli